Examining the Limits of the Web 2.0 Paradigm
Today I needed to get a few interesting things done on my web app - primarily all GUI-related, but there were a few things I needed on the back-end for some new functionality I was adding to the administration page. It was very simple on the back-end and on the GUI, and it got me to thinking - Are there really limits to the Web 2.0 paradigm now? I'm not convinced there are that many.
Oh sure, if I was writing a Photoshop-clone, using a web browser is a mistake. But for the vast majority of the apps that I've written in my life, I'm not sure that they could not now be written in AJAX and be just as effective as the original apps.
This web app I'm working with is a great example. Lots of graph/graphics that needs lots of data, but it's working just fine. Sure, I might wish the Google Visualization widgets were a little more full-featured, but that's an implementation issue - not a limitation of the technology.
I have been talking to an old friend about some problems they are having with their patient management system - a successor to one I wrote for them many years ago. That could certainly be re-written in the AJAX framework and probably have a significantly better user-experience. At the time, it was forms-based, and while that was fine for patient management, it's not anything like what we're doing now.
I'm getting to like this idea more and more. In the past, applications like Paradox and Filemaker were the tools that I used to make these applications, but now I could use a Mac Mini Server with Tomcat, H2, and AJAX, and be done with it for next to nothing. This is really pretty impressive. I just need to keep thinking about things a little differently. Interesting what assumptions you challenge, and how your answers change as time passes. Neat.